In August last year it was revealed that Bahmanzadeh still held a valid licence to operate the Dance Academy as a nightclub - despite the venue being closed since 2006 when it was raided by drugs police in an operation which saw the club boss jailed for four years.

In August 2009 Plymouth City Council’s licensing committee was warned it would be in contempt of court if it removed the Dance Academy licence’s before Proceeds of Crime proceedings had been completed.

The proceedings were completed in June 2011, but it appears the city council did not pick up on this information.

In January 2012 Bahmanzadeh won the right to appeal against his conviction, again putting the licence decision on hold.

Last November, Bahmanzadeh failed in his bid to overturn his conviction for allowing Ecstasy to be sold at the club.

At the time he said he has no idea what will happen to the empty, rundown building – which he still owns – following the failed attempt to clear his name.

After the hearing he said: “Whether anybody believes this or not, I did more than a lot of the other club owners in the city to target drug dealers. I got involved physically and was congratulated by the police. I personally threw out people who have since been convicted of serious drug dealing.”

Despite failing to overturn his conviction, Bahmanzadeh’s appeal against sentence was successful, reducing it from nine years to seven-and-a-half, effectively setting him free.

Prosecutor Duncan Penny made no representations at the Royal Courts of Justice, leaving Lord Justice Laws, accompanied by Mr Justice Griffith Williams and Mr Justice Males, to give his decision.

Lord Justice Laws accepted that fresh material showed how former head doorman Gareth Grimes was not a credible witness thanks to his own involvement in the drugs-related killing of Fernando Lopez in 2004 and his lies about being a Royal Marine. He said the court accepted his credibility was further undermined as it emerged that while working as a doorman at Bongogo’s he had tried to sell drugs to an off duty officer and boasted of his £5,000 a week earnings.

However, while it bolstered Bahmanzadeh’s claim he had fired Mr Grimes for ‘taxing’ dealers, and undermined Mr Grimes’s view that the club’s management did not appear ‘enthusiastic’ about searches, Lord Justice Laws said this did not damage the case and unduly influence the jury’s decision, adding Mr Grimes’s evidence was “by no means at the heart of the case”.

He said Mr Grimes’s claim to Tom Costelloe to being a former Royal Marine was merely to indicate his “physical presence” and would not have affected his credibility.

He reiterated there had been numerous meetings and correspondence with police about the sale and consumption of drugs at the premises prior to the drugs raid on May 7, 2006. In addition, he read out extracts of several Test Purchase Officers who repeatedly described the sale of Ecstasy in the club as “blatant”, “overt” and “obvious” during Operation Jonamac which ran from December 1, 2005 to the club’s closure.

He said there was “no doubt he [Bahmanzadeh] relied on others, but responsible, he was” and he “failed to take reasonable steps” to prevent the sale of Ecstasy.

He said it was also extremely doubtful if Bahmanzadeh would have been helped if the jury were told another man “was involved in drugs” and the evidence of Tony Pattinson, of the Harbour centre, who had said the drug taking in the club was “no worse than other clubs”, would not undermine the conviction.

Mr Justice Laws said trial judge Judge Francis Gilbert’s summing up, saying the music played at the venue was associated with the consumption of drugs, and the quantity of bottled water was not “unfair”, adding “it seems to us that the judge was entirely entitled to refer to them.”

He said the “essence of the Crown’s case is, in our view, unaffected.”

The appeal judges accepted that new sentencing guidelines would mean Bahmanzadeh’s nine-year term should be reduced to seven-and-a-half. As he had been jailed in July 2008, it would mean he had fully served half his sentence.

Outside court Bahmanzadeh said: “There’s still a lot of information which the courts and police have not disclosed. I don’t know what will happen next. I still own the building [Palace Theatre], but what happens next I honestly don’t know.

“We will have to see the implications of this on my licence. I’m going to think. Whatever I had thought [was going to happen] has turned out not right.”

24 comments

This man will continue to put his face in the news with his activist ways. Please everyone, just ignore this guy and don't play up to him in any way. He is a convicted criminal that should be staying out of the press and out of our lives. He thinks he's some kind of saint and anyone who knows his is either foolishly playing up to his narcissistic ways or laughing at him. He has no place in Plymouth and the Herald should stop reporting him. Clubbers may want what the dance academy was in terms of it's drug filled dance nights, but mustn't support this man's intentions of stirring up the industry. I have seen him parading his gangster style display, looking for respect in H2o, and he should be ignored. Seriously, just leave this man be to wallow in his self pity.

Does anyone even no what licence he was stripped of was it a entertainment licence or a public entertainment licence or even Alcohol licence as just interesting to no because i'm sure the first two have to be renewed every 12 months and the latter is as long as you want but has to be on a annual fee update and given on a personal basis.I may be wrong but hasn't this place been closed for 7 years now just how do you get a the first to licences with all the things you must have i'e fire and safety measures,electric safety certificates etc

so no evidence to say he know what was going on just what the police and the judges and jury believes ,how can you convict the man on the hear say ,and we believe this and that ,,i believe in father Christmas but it dont mean he is real ... :)

10 or 20 years from now .. that particular street will still be the same . Weeds growing out of buildings . And a major city in the south west without an airport . But lets all go for the "city of culture" which costs at leasts 50 grand as an entry fee ( why ? ) ... my a"s .
I can make a certificate and frame it for a tenner if they want .

I can see a new business venture from allowing Urban Explorers in. Is falling to the ground, which totally suits Plymouth City Council to rid us of anything with any type of herritage in the City. Not totally sure that PCC are actually best placed to be involved in the final outcome of this fine building. The planning department appear to make blunder after blunder so say for the good of us all. Usually is simply about them getting cash rich with conditions.

Official PCC action play for Millbay in 2006
"Plymouth Cathedral and St. Peter's Church will still very much define
the skyline of the area but there will be new landmarks too. The
Palace Theatre will be regenerated and be a key landmark on Union
Street, which will have regained its prominent position as one of the
most vibrant arteries in the City."
http://tinyurl.com/ahajxv4
It must be nice to be able to 'regenerate' properties that you dont own.

Time to give this building to the Project Palace group now as there the only people who can save this place now as they have the best plan for it I'E to lease the building off the owner hopefully for more than i year as has been stated previously and let them get the funding which is out there to sort the building out so that the local community can use this building again in the many ways it was designed for and potential to do so in a modern world.

Time to give this building to the Project Palace group now as there the only people who can save this place now as they have the best plan for it I'E to lease the building off the owner hopefully for more than i year as has been stated previously and let them get the funding which is out there to sort the building out so that the local community can use this building again in the many ways it was designed for and potential to do so in a modern world.